Care polymers, including silicones, are used in premium consumer products to provide benefits such as softness, hand, anti-wrinkle, hair conditioning/frizz control, color protection, etc. Unfortunately, such care polymers are incompatible with a variety of other consumer product ingredients, for example, anionic surfactants, and/or are expensive due to the cost of silicone raw materials and the silicone emulsification step that is required to make such silicones useful in products. Thus, what is needed is an economical, stable care polymer technology with reduced incompatibility issues.
Fortunately, Applicants recognized that the source of the incompatibility and stability issues was the care polymers' charge and such polymers' stiffness as due to such polymers' high glass transition temperature. Thus, Applicants discovered that by judiciously selecting or synthesizing nonionic care polymers that have the correct glass transition temperature, the incompatibility and stability issues could be resolved and yet the required performance can be obtained. The performance of the care polymers that Applicants teach, can be further increased by following the emulsification teachings of the present specification and/or by combining such care polymers with silicone materials.